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Capital Journal: The Mess in the Middle East

3/27/2015 12:00PM

With uprisings in Yemen, fighting in Iraq and a nuclear negotiation in Iran making, WSJ defense reporter Julian Barnes explains these events this affect the United States and its relationships in the region. Photo: AP

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... so Jillian um the Middle East which is ... pretty messed up and invest the circumstances looks totally incoherent by the Vienna this week you've got ... an for the US in particular YouGov U S negotiating a good deal with Iran ... were consistent with the Iranians fighting Islamic State in Iraq ... and participating in a military operation against the Iranian allies the disease in Yemen ... and that's just for starters ... can you make any sense of this kind of Brock Obama ... in a sense of the more portly I mean it is amazingly Google time in the Middle East has just indicated on ... U S is not directly involved in Yemen right now we told our special operations forces pulled out the embassy personnel ... this is the Saudi led operation ... the US is nominally helping with intelligence but this is the hymns are off this this is ... this is the Saudis and their ... coalition of Gulf countries that pay out of ... love cobbled together to go after the Iranian backed up with the rebels of data to re install a government is just disintegrated as far as I can tell at ... solely in their celebrations in Washington about what exactly the Saudi ... plan is here are they going to cousin Heidi back on the throne ... do they have another contender weighting in the wings what what are they up to here ... there's not a an agreement with in Washington about what the Saudis are doing this is been played out over the next few days and we don't know ... how successful this ... Saudi led campaign will be your or your stress enough to roll back ... the edge of the worst in this that ... Yemen is the backyard for Saudi Arabia's not from the art and it's almost impossible to overstate how worried they are in ... all ... and critique Lee right ... this is a proxy war between our you know Saudi Arabia and will ... less proxy now studies by the end of the conflict in Iran and Saudi Arabia and this is one of the driving force in the Middle East right now ... um you know ... the Saudi Arabia's very worried about sending a wrong and they they look around the region a well deserved some Yemeni look at Iraq and ... the scene or on getting more powerful they are ... work anytime in secrete euro The secrete this week the U S he is directly militarily involved ... again was about to become so in an aerial campaign against Islamic State fighters because they can be dislodged from concrete ... in the writings failed and ... in their effort to help us on that front ... this ... is a complicated Sanaa Rio we had ... up the U S engineer or on request from Iraq to up coming in and ... just ... do airstrikes in Tikrit after a up ... to ... run our offense of stalled out after two weeks now ... it is the case that this support will benefit the Iranian backed Shiite militias under the bull fighting and Korea ... but both you know we're from the Pentagon is this is a sign of the failure of the Iranian campaign now what to see if that's true but that's the message right now all Ron can provide help to rock the house to be the United States has to be cool ... so Sony just got back from Israel where this picture that Julian has been spreading of Iran ascendant ... an Islamic state ascendant is gonna be absolutely terrified that ... I mean he's really see this as ... it circled ... you have the and then ... you have ... it you have the Iranian IRGC ... which is deployed at increasingly alongside his hard right Republican Guard deployed with his ally ... increasingly in southern Syria see have this built ... that goes from Levanon into southern Syria now ... IDC yet yet and falling in particular they're concerned about ... the Iranians getting access to the ports ... in southern Yemen which would give them access for is really safe for smuggling ... into the Sinai which can be used ... should the relationship between ... Iran and Hamas improve right now there certain strange but ... if that were to improve ... that could create head at the southern problem for Israel ... bottom line is ... that to you know as we get in this countdown to potential nuclear deal ... I think everybody via the kind of unstated ally here is Israel and Saudi Arabia ... are exactly on the same page when it comes to Iran ... and that they are ... freaking out and willing to do things and say things ... that I think I'm you know they haven't been prepared for the past ... because the thinking they think the